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Strategies & Market Trends : Income Taxes and Record Keeping ( tax ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jason Rooks who wrote (917)	4/2/1998 12:08:00 PM
From: ccryder	Respond to of 5810

Etrade lets the customer designate which shares to sell, but since no records are transferred to the IRS regarding the purchase price, you can do what you want later. The only problem is the etrade calculation of profit/loss cannot be updated later if you change your mind on which shares to report. But, hey, I'm no expert in this stuff.

To: Jason Rooks who wrote (917)	4/2/1998 1:14:00 PM
From: Brendan W	Respond to of 5810

Jason, there's a lot of confusion about the requirements for specific identification. My best attempts at researching this lead me to believe the accepted method is for the identification to be printed by your broker on your confirm statement. Another method I contemplated was faxing a specific identification letter prior to or simultaneously with the order (and having your long-distance phone records as documentation as to the timing). (I don't believe the after-the-fact identification will withstand IRS scrutiny.) However, I discovered a nice feature of my broker which is that the transaction records can be edited for versus purchase information AFTER the fill for a certain unknown-to-me period before it is final. So I call my broker immediately after my fill. Check with your broker. Of course, your SOL if you're with a web broker that has limited customer service. Bottom-line... I believe the IRS requires prior, written, third-party documentation of the specific identification and it better look like that's what you have.